Six Degrees of Seperation

I have a complaint and it's to  the serial chatters that can't step away from the keyboard and into the real world. Yes most of us have made friends on places like Yahoo,ICQ or Live Messenger. We have also made friends at the pub, the racecourse, the beach, the grocery store or maybe through our work.

When you catch up with a friend you met 6 years ago while at a job you've since moved on from, you don't say "at work" but a chatter will say " in chat". This drives me insane
I mean yes it was nice to meet you put a face to the ID and maybe if your lucky remember your given name the one your parents chose for you. I have made some awesome friends ( non serial chatters) through chat rooms back in chats hey day, now I only lurk during my holidays or if the kids are elsewhere occupied and want anything to do with me.
The friend you met at the pub won't expect you to know whats going on in the lives of everyone else at the bar that night, but a chatter will. The chatter expects you to be up to date with all the gossip even when you haven't been in a room in months.


Yes, I hear you all saying if you can't handle the heat stay out of the kitchen, but I do enjoy a bit of a chat now and then. What I don't enjoy is  the fact that I know a person a chatter knows it means I must have met them in chat. It's a small world and I've traveled I don't need a chat room to have a 45% chance of knowing somebody that lives on the other side of Australia from me without the benefit of chat and that chance increases with the more social circles that we have in common.

Facebook's mutual friends list sometimes makes me go WOW! six degrees of separation. My x boyfriend, from 20 yrs ago sister, knows your brother. That kind of thing.
It's always intrigued me how the dynamics of the chat friendship works.
When I first started to chat I assumed I'd never meet these people that were locked inside my computer but over the years I have reached out and met a few and some of those weren't by design they just happened to be in the same vicinity.
some I've held onto in the real world but the serial chatters I still say hello to if I slink into a chat room apart from that I'm not running off to spend time with them.

The few I've met and enjoy spending time with I'd bend over backwards to see again or to help out, even if I'm not in their lives on a daily basis. these are the ones that don't just connect to me as a chatter but as a real live person.